Friday, September 19, 2014

Sergei Kapkov Libraries in Moscow will not be closed – Russian Newspaper

Today, “business breakfast” in “RG” government minister visited Moscow Head of the Department of Culture Sergei Kapkov. His speech on the eve of the parliamentary hearings in the State Duma has done a lot of noise: in the “RG” came a whole bunch of letters from Muscovites. Some of them are outraged that the head of the Department of Culture of the capital does not hide his desire to close all municipal libraries, others are grateful for the fact that he so clearly caught the attention of the media and the public libraries and the problem of their modernization. With clarify position on this issue and began to “RG” conversation with the Minister.

– Sergey! Quote: “In Moscow, 700 municipal libraries, and any one of them over the past year has not entered any man.” And then you regretted that you have no right to deprive them of public money.

Sergei Kapkov: in the media continue the quote: “And to sell their houses …”

– No, because you did not say we saw a transcript of the meeting. So, let’s close the libraries?

Sergei Kapkov: Quote, which issued the “Interfax”, is incorrect. The agency brought me my apology, and the message is corrected. I gave the example of children’s libraries are located in the vicinity of the lanes of the Arbat, where I used to live the party, trade union and cultural elite. In this environment, with a deficit of books was considered good form to enroll their children in the library, by the record and go to the reading room. Now there is no shortage of books, as there is no concept of “child” and “adult” library, although, in fact, all the children’s library there is. Next to them – the bookstore shelves is worth more than 200 thousand books. And the library in this area is really no written.

as discussed at the hearings is an important document – the basis of cultural policy. And in his project were separated by commas mentioned “House of Culture, the library” as a source of culture on the concept of the Ministry of Culture. I oppose that document that the president will sign, built on the rhetoric of the past. What there can be a library, a “brick of the past”? On the basis of many of them in Moscow for the first year, there are library. They can attend a course of scientific lectures, take additional education, and older people are exploring programs that allow them to learn the computer. Should not be in the concept of space and “house of culture”, a term coined by the Soviet Minister of Culture Catherine Furtsevoy. Need a different name, such as a cultural center.

I do not understand why this concept and no such thing as a creative cluster – like “Winery”, “Garage” … In life there, and in the document – no! I will continue to row. Bookstore is a cultural object? Is. But then, it is not! Understanding how to construct the power vertical, I advocate that you do not lose any important things. On the other hand, what in the document such beautiful words as Philharmonic Hall, a concert hall? Do we have in each subject of the federation they are? At the heart of cultural policy should be to lay perfectly understandable human arithmetic and regional ministers and layman. There must be such things as, for example, a section about his childhood, which states: every Russian schoolboy twice a year go to the theater, and twice a year goes on a trip or a lesson to the museum.

And then the policy will start to work. I, the minister, I will think: this is for seventh-grader, I have the material in museums, for eleventh-graders – have a play, all the Russian classics. And for a preteen? Like “Chippolino” and “Pinocchio” he has outgrown, “Timur and His Team” fell out of the cage for obvious ideological reasons to me … It turns out there’s nothing left! And then I start to reconsider funding even theaters to get a desired me intellectual product. Now the law does not require from me. Engage or not – depends entirely on my own personal desires, indifference or indifference. That is, I want to say that producing the document, you need to make it implementation mechanisms. Logic is about the same as at the time GTO school that provides push-ups ten times, so much and for such a time to run. And then, at least, it becomes clear why we need physical education classes and the children they have to do.

That’s exactly the same should be in humanitarian and aesthetic education of the individual through culture. That’s what I and a lot of hard-and spoke in the Duma. And heard only that out of context and applied as they wanted.

– In a word, the library will not be closed? Including on the Arbat, where there are also people who are not that book in the store can not afford, but every day a fresh newspaper. So they go to read it in the reading room.

Sergei Kapkov: No, of course. On the contrary, our libraries, which have become more than a library, now work until 10 pm, readers learn to work with e-government, so that they can complain to the local bureaucrat, not leaving the house and so on.

– Mikhail from Moscow asks: “In Moscow there is no municipal library, as they are all set up the department of culture and government agencies are. When in accordance with the Federal Law” On General Principles of Local Self-Government in the Russian Federation “, these libraries will be transferred to local authorities operating in the city?

Sergei Kapkov: We have 700 libraries, because municipalities do not want them to take. There’s only municipal library attached areas of the city, but also where the local authorities are happy to give them to us. This is a question of funding. As agreed, and live.

– Create a library in Moscow at night – your initiative?

Sergei Kapkov: This is an initiative of librarians. They seized on the example of the German Stuttgart, where such a library is. But my conviction – not as a minister, but just the layman, they arise due to the fact that in the big cities people are lonely. People can not sleep, that’s looking for nothing. Why do I get round the clock shopping centers? People want to communicate. Should it do so? Speaking of libraries, I think not, as we have round the clock bookstores and hence the persistent communication. Moreover, our Moscow book at night even give a 20 percent discount on the purchase of books than happy to use the students.

The full text of “Business Breakfast” with Sergei Kapkova read in one of the closest Room “Rossiyskaya Gazeta”.